“What is it?” Robby peered down at the navy square.
“Looks like the cushion off a seat,” Kenny said. He glanced at Carter and lifted an eyebrow above his protruding brow ridge. “Outta the airplane, ya think?”
Carter scanned the surrounding sea, feeling his heart skip when he spied another navy square floating nearby. Next to it bobbed a shiny piece of metal. Letting his gaze widen, he realized there were numerous pieces of trash floating with the current in an ever-widening circle, and the iridescent sheen of spilled fuel made rainbow effects on the waves.
“It’s the plane.” His voice was hoarse with disbelief and relief. “Or what’s left of it.”
Robby blinked. “So we’re done then? They crashed and died?”
Carter felt a little giddy as he glanced around at the bobbing debris.Could it really have been this easy?
Chapter 9
12:50 PM...
This entire day deserves a giant middle finger, Dalton “Doc” Simmons thought unhappily as he helped the others drag the life raft out of the surf and onto the little island.
Island.Sh’yeah right. That was like calling a Chihuahua a dog. Nothing that small and pathetic-looking deserved the title.
The sandbar stretchedmaybea quarter of a mile. And it had some nice palm trees growing in its center that would provide shade from the relentless sun. But that was all it had going for it.
No fresh water. No shelter. No birds or animals that could sustain them should their rescue not happen in the next day or two.
To recap, in the last twenty-four hours, he had gotten blackout drunk, had seduced and failed to seal the deal with a mystery woman who’d turned out to be his lawyer, had nearly died in a plane crash, had busted his head and broken his arm, and now he was stranded on a desert...er...sandbarin the middle of the ocean with zero resources.
Definitely a giant middle finger sort of day.
“What now?” Cami dusted off her hands before shading her eyes so she, too, could survey their meager surroundings. “Should we gather sticks to spell out S.O.S. in the sand? Build a tree house? Fashion a fishing net out of palm fronds to maybe catch some—”
“Slow down there, Robinson Crusoe.” Doc got dizzy just listeningto her making plans. Or maybe that was the head injury.Hard to tell.“How about we take a couple minutes to stand here, catch our breath, and appreciate that we’re on solid ground and not out in the ocean where we could fall victim to another rogue wave or a man-eating shark. How’s that sound?”
“Like a waste of time, quite frankly,” she said with a twist of her lips, which, amazingly, were still painted a vibrant red. He wondered what her lipstick was made of. Shellac?
She’s got gumption, he admitted against his will.Gumption and spirit and enough sass to sink a ship.
Romeo scratched his goatee, humor glinting in his eyes. “I think a tree house might be a little ambitious. How would you feel about a lean-to that protects us from the wind?”
“I mean, a tree house soundsbetter,” she insisted. “Less sand. Fewer crabs.”
Damnit! DoclikedCamilla D’ Angelo.
When he forgot about the lawyer thing, he could admit she was the kind of woman he generally enjoyed spending time with. Smart. Funny. Able to keep her wits about her even when the proverbial shit was slamming into the proverbial fan at a hundred miles per hour.
And drop-dead gorgeous.
Although, that last thing was usually a mark in his minus column. He’d always preferred women who were sweetly pretty. Women whose looks added to their overall appeal but didn’t define them. Women more like Mia. The Gwyneth Paltrows of the world.
Cami was more of a Kim Kardashian. The kind of beautiful that was like getting hit in the teeth with a tire iron. Face?Pow!Body?Wham!
Then again, maybe the reason he’d always preferred Gwyneth Paltrow to Kim Kardashian, was that women who looked like Kimmie K. didn’t generally go for guys who looked like him. Guys who had uncut hair and untrimmed beard stubble. Guys who couldn’t be bothered to match their belts to their boots.
Women who looked like Kimmie K. went for guys who looked like Romeo.
Nope. Scratch that. Rewind.Allwomen went for guys who looked like Romeo.
In fact, when Doc had seen Cami crossing the bar, her hips swaying dramatically, those dark eyes of hers the definition of seduction, he’d thought for sure she’d been aiming for Rico Suave himself. He’d nearly snorted his beer through his nose when she’d sidled up to him instead.
And then I went and got so loaded I couldn’t show her the good time she was after.It wasn’t the most embarrassing moment of his life. But it was damn close. Only slightly edged out by that time during his residency when, in the wee small hours of the morning, he’d tiptoed into the hospital room of a seventy-year-old patient thinking he’d quietly check the man’s chart without waking him. Instead, he’d caught the guy with the blanket tossed aside, hospital gown pulled up to his chest, vigorously flogging his log.
